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1 " The story in this book was about a woman who has gifted her life to a man. This is not something to be tried at home but it is usually where it happens. "
― Deborah Levy , Real Estate
2 " It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. "
3 " we do not have to conform to the way our life has been written for us, especially by those who are less imaginative than ourselves. "
4 " In fact I would be content to live in a humble wooden cabin on the edge of an ocean or a lake, but somehow I looked down on myself for not having a bigger dream. "
5 " It seemed that acquiring a house was not the same thing as acquiring a home. And connected to home was a question I swatted away every time it landed too near me. Who else was living with me in the grand old house with the pomegranate tree? Was I alone with the melancholy fountain for company? No. There was definitely someone else there with me, perhaps even cooling their feet in that fountain. Who was this person? A phantom. "
6 " That night, in the deep heat of Greece, devoured by mosquitoes and reminiscences, I was thinking about all the doors I had closed in my life and what it would have taken to keep them ajar. "
7 " I was also searching for a house in which I could live and work and make a world at my own pace, but even in my imagination this home was blurred, undefined, not real, or not realistic, or lacked realism. "
8 " The house with the pomegranate tree was my major acquisition. In this sense, I owned some unreal estate. The odd thing was that every time I tried to see myself inside this grand old house, I felt sad. It was as if the search for home was the point, and now that I had acquired it and the chase was over, there were no more branches to put in the fire. "
9 " A life without swimming every day was not a life I wanted. "
10 " One of these men told me at a book festival that if he did not transgress too many boundaries in his marriage, there would always be a comforting pair of slippers warming for him by the fire...Will there ever be a comforting pair of slippers (pink, feathered) warming for me by the egg-shaped fireplace? Not unless I became a female character in a vintage Hollywood movie and paid a housekeeper to put them there. "
11 " In Western European realist fiction, what is a writer going to do (we wondered out loud) with the irrational, with synchronicities, with superstition and the private magic we invent to keep us out of harm’s way, with the uncanny, with thought streams and digressions that contradict our attempt to fix the story? "
12 " Sometimes I would sprinkle sea salt on a wedge sour green tomato and dip it into the peppery emerald olive oil. It was as if I had struck on something good that was within my reach. "
13 " Bengali philosopher, poet and composer Rabindranath Tagore: It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple. "